Heartstrings
by slythatheart
Summary: Final part of the No Strings verse, following New Attachments. It was a difficult lesson to learn, but Dave figured out the heart of it the moment he opened his eyes. Life is worth living; you just need to make it through the rough patches.


**Notes: **I can't believe we're finally here. Two years later, and we hit endgame.

I humbly request that you all please just trust me and don't, like, rage!quit part way through.

_/* represents a flashback */_

* * *

**Heartstrings**

Dave wasn't sure what woke him up, because it definitely wasn't his alarm and he didn't feel a little girl with surprisingly damaging limbs crawling all over him, either. He kept his eyes squeezed shut in a desperate attempt to stay asleep and shuffled over a little in search of his husband's warmth.

Sebastian wasn't there.

He blinked his eyes open slowly, confused, then looked around in shock. The room wasn't the one he shared with his husband, wasn't the one he'd gone to sleep in. He was clearly in a hospital so something must have happened, which was terrifying in and of itself, because he_ couldn't remember_. There didn't appear to be anything really wrong with him, although he felt a little muzzy around the edges, like he couldn't quite feel all his limbs. When he tried to move them he could, so he chalked it up to painkillers and decided it was more important for him to figure out what had happened, before the nervous churning in his gut led to full on panic.

And he needed to know where Sebastian was, because if Dave was in hospital there was no way Sebastian would be anywhere else. Not unless Sebastian – or, oh God, _Selena_ – was in a different room.

No.

No, he refused to think that way. Sebastian had probably just disappeared for a few minutes. Maybe he'd gone to get something to eat, or to go to the bathroom. Or maybe they'd had to go home for the night because Selena wasn't even three yet and she needed her bed. That made sense. Sebastian and Selena were _fine_. They had to be.

The room wasn't dark, not quite, but it was dark enough that Dave was sure that he was meant to be asleep. He considered paging someone, but he was feeling restless and figured that a walk might do him some good. He didn't seem to be attached to any monitors, so whatever was wrong couldn't be too bad. He'd just go and look for a nurse.

The hall was more brightly lit than his room, and he found the nurses' station almost immediately. It looked familiar, somehow, though he wasn't sure why.

"Excuse me," he asked the woman behind the desk, "I was just wondering what I'm doing here?" His voice was a little rough, maybe a little nervous, too.

She smiled at him and shook her head reproachfully. "Well I'm wondering the same thing, sweetheart. You should still be in bed."

"No...no, I mean, why am I in hospital when I should be at home?"

"I know it's felt like forever, but it's not for much longer, I promise. Your father will be taking you home tomorrow, remember?"

No, he didn't remember. Should he? And why would his father be picking him up instead of Sebastian? But the nurse was starting to look more concerned and if Dave was meant to be leaving the next day he didn't want to do anything to stop that, no matter how itchy his skin felt, or how much his stomach was twisting itself into knots from anxiety. He'd go back to his room and wait for Sebastian or his dad to arrive in the morning and tell him more. Whatever he was in hospital for, maybe it was making his memory a little fuzzy. Maybe he had a concussion or something – he thought he was okay but he was pretty sure that a bump on the head could do that. Or maybe they'd had to give him something and he was still affected by it.

Ignoring the doubts that were starting to creep into his head, Dave made his way back to the room he'd been in. He contemplated trying to go back to sleep, but that was never going to happen, not with how uneasy he felt. There had to be something...something in the room that could tell him what was going on. There was nothing on the adjustable table beside the bed, at least nothing helpful. Just some gifts, the average, get-well-soon type of gifts that always get sent to someone in the hospital. There were even more on a chest of drawers by the door and a bunch of flowers on top of the drawers held a card. Maybe…

He picked the card up. It was difficult to decipher in the dim light, but it was from Kurt and he was apologizing and saying he cared.

That didn't tell Dave anything, except that maybe he was mad at Kurt for some reason, or maybe Kurt felt responsible for whatever had put Dave in hospital. He could only imagine how fast Sebastian and Kurt's grudging ceasefire would fall apart if that were true. He looked over the gifts again but didn't see any other cards, and there was no chart on the end of his bed either, despite what medical dramas had led him to believe.

There was nothing else out in the open, so he tugged open the top drawer. There wasn't much inside, no clothes or anything, just an older looking phone, a wallet and a watch. He almost passed them off as someone else's that had been accidentally left in his room, except he knew that watch, recognized it immediately.

It was the watch that his mother gave him when he turned sixteen. There was no way to mistake it, especially since it was engraved on the back. But why would that be there? He hadn't seen it in _years_, not since he boxed it up and put it away with some of his old junk in his dad's attic.

Fear cut through Dave, swift and sharp, and before he could chicken out he snatched the wallet up, opening it with shaky fingers. It contained his driver's license.

The one he got when he was in high school.

No.

_No, no, no_,

Panic bubbled up in his chest and the wallet fell from his hands. He ignored where it landed when it hit the floor, trying to breathe through what felt like the beginnings of an anxiety attack. He had to...he needed to breathe but he felt suffocated, like all the air had been sucked out of the room. He tried to remember what he'd learned to fend off an oncoming panic attack, all those years ago – _was it years ago?_ – tried to follow the advice, but couldn't.

There was a door on the other side of the room. It was the bathroom, he remembered. This room, the room he suddenly recognized, had a private one. This was where he'd stayed after...when…

_/* "Your father will be taking you home tomorrow, remember?" */_

...it was the room he'd been in for his seventy-two hour watch. It all clicked in his brain suddenly and the urge to be sick washed over him. He tried to remember everything, tried to focus on Sebastian, on the life they'd built, but details were getting foggier in his head with every passing second. But they couldn't…

_They were real_...he couldn't have...

His stomach lurched violently and he ran to the bathroom. He barely made it in time to lose his dinner, his lunch, probably anything he'd eaten in the last day. When he was done, he was crying and shaking, still on the edge of panic. He stood on wobbly legs, turned towards the sink to rinse the foul taste from his mouth, and froze.

He was looking at his seventeen year old self in the mirror.

He tried to focus on Sebastian. On Selena. His life with them was real...it _had_ to be. He wasn't...this was _in the past._ He'd moved on from this, he wasn't this person anymore.

"No," he croaked. "No, no, no."

_He wasn't._

All the things that had happened...all the ways that his life had gotten better...he couldn't have dreamed it all. Except...except that he was seventeen. He was in his hospital room after trying to hang himself and he _didn't_ have all those things. No Sebastian. No Selena. And the more he tried to remember them the more they got lost in his head and the more confused he felt.

_No, no, no! Oh God, no–_

Dave bolted upright, heart racing and skin clammy with sweat. He couldn't breathe and the sheets were tangled around his legs, leaving him feeling trapped and panicked. It took a moment; eyes darting around the room as they adjusted to the darkness, fingers rubbing against his wedding ring nervously; for his mind to catch up with him, to process that he wasn't in the hospital, wasn't seventeen and hadn't dreamed some fantasy life that was never going to happen.

He was in his room, his _real_ room that he shared with his _real_ husband. He'd had a fucking _nightmare_, that was all.

_Just a nightmare_, he told himself silently.

"Mmm...Gr'wly? S'wrong?" Sebastian was half asleep, squinting up at Dave and yawning. His hand reached out, falling lazily onto Dave's thigh and squeezing. "You okay?"

"Y-yeah," he said, taking slow, steady breaths in an attempt to get his pulse back to something resembling normal, to ease the knot of fear that was still tight and heavy in his gut. "I just need some water."

"Y'sure?"

"Of course," he answered. He dropped a kiss to Sebastian's mouth, lingering for a moment to press their foreheads together before he crawled out of bed. The reminder that he could have missed out on all of this was fresh and awful in his mind. "Go back to sleep, Seb."

"Hmm...'kay."

Sebastian hadn't even been really awake, not properly, so Dave wasn't surprised to see he'd drifted back to sleep before Dave even left the room. He watched Sebastian, just for a moment, letting his husband's peaceful expression ground him.

His throat was dry, he hadn't really lied about needing that water, but he took a detour on his way to the kitchen.

Selena was curled up on her side, spooned around her favorite stuffed animal; a little fluffy lion cub that Charlotte had given her. It was half her size, just about, because she was still so tiny – only two and a half, nearly three.

_/* "Two an' th'ee fours, Papa!"_

"_I think you mean two and three-_fourths_, Munchkin." */_

Dave couldn't resist letting his hand stroke over her soft hair. When he kissed her gently on the forehead she didn't move at all, but that wasn't surprising. She slept like a log.

How could he have believed, even for a second – _even in a nightmare_ – that she wasn't real?

Eventually he tore himself away from her bedside and made his way into the kitchen, half filling a glass with water that he drank too quickly. He filled the glass again, to the top this time, and pulled himself up to sit on the kitchen counter, sipping it slowly. He stared at the calendar on the wall, trying to pull apart his tangle of feelings into something more manageable.

It had been a long time, several years in fact, since this particular date messed with his head so badly. He'd thought he was over it; the day had never passed without a little sadness and a lot of gratitude that his life turned out the way it had, but he hadn't had nightmares or anxiety about it in a very long time. But then again he'd never been faced with the ten year anniversary of his suicide attempt before.

There were so many things...so much he never would have felt, never would have seen, never would have experienced if he hadn't survived. Ten fucking years he wouldn't have had, and still a lifetime ahead of him. A lifetime with an amazing husband and a beautiful daughter, and maybe more kids someday soon.

Maybe it wasn't surprising that he'd had a dream like that. Not with tomorrow – _today_, he realized as he glanced at the clock – being the day that it was.

His life had become so...so _wonderful_, and ten years earlier he could have given it all up.

"Babe? You okay?"

Dave craned his neck, shooting Sebastian a reassuring smile over his shoulder. Sebastian still looked tired, but far more awake than he'd been when Dave left their bedroom.

"Yeah," he answered as Sebastian rounded the counter and took the now empty glass from him, placing it in the sink. He relaxed into the space between Dave's legs, hips against the edge of the counter, forearms on Dave's thighs, his head rested against Dave's chest. "Sorry," Dave added. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay," Sebastian said. "Don't get me wrong, there are definitely more fun ways to wake up in the middle of the night, but I wanted to make sure you're alright. You seem sort of...morose."

"No, I'm just...I don't know. I can't stop thinking, you know?"

"About tomorrow?" Sebastian's voice was soft and understanding. He'd been affected each year too, although Dave knew he tried not to make a big deal about it; always just a little softer and a little more affectionate than normal. He was grateful as well, Dave supposed.

"Today," he corrected.

"It's not a new day until the sun is up and Selena is ordering us to make her breakfast," Sebastian argued, nuzzling into Dave's chest when Dave laughed.

"You're right. She's a very demanding little thing. I wonder where she gets _that _from," he joked.

They were quiet for a few minutes before Sebastian spoke again. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Dave sighed. "I just...had a nightmare. I was back in Lima, in the hospital. After it happened, you know? I dreamed that the last ten years weren't real and that I'd...that I'd dreamed _them_. That it was the night before I was meant to leave the hospital."

"You mean the night before I came to see you?"

"Yeah," he nodded, wrapping his arms around Sebastian. "I just...I guess I was more bothered by today than I have been the last few years. It's...a whole decade, you know? Ten _entire _years where things have gotten better and they might not have. I could have missed out on all of this. And in my dream I didn't have you, or Selena."

"_Yet_."

Dave shrugged. "Or maybe at all. When I thought...when I thought I dreamed all of this I was terrified that I'd _never_ have it. That it was...that it was _too_ good. You know? I'm so fucking lucky, Seb."

"We _both_ are, Growly. But don't think for one second that there would ever have been any chance that I wasn't going to come to see you that day. Not _ever_. I know that-that you're right because it all could have gone wrong. But it didn't – you _survived_, and the moment you did we were _always_ going to end up together. All the details...maybe they'd be different. But you and me? I was never going to give up on you unless you wanted me to. Not after almost losing you."

"I'd never have asked you to give up. I wouldn't have wanted to lose you, either."

"Exactly. Because I'm incredible." Sebastian sounded smug again as he slipped his arms around Dave's middle. Dave snorted in reply, but Sebastian just ignored it. "Your nightmare sounds awful and I wish you'd never had it, but just think about it like this: you dreamed about the night _before _I came to apologize. That doesn't mean that it wasn't still going to happen. Your dream self was panicking but my dream self would have helped make him feel better the next day."

"I feel like this is leading into some kind of sex joke," Dave grinned, already feeling much lighter than he had five minutes before. Sebastian didn't answer straight away, but Dave could feel him smirking against the muscles of his chest. Sebastian's arms tightened around his waist.

They relaxed like that for a little longer before Sebastian pulled back slightly, slapping Dave on his thigh. "C'mon, let's get back to bed."

"I don't think I can sleep yet," Dave said.

Sebastian's lip curled wickedly and Dave recognized that look, _loved_ that look. "I said bed. I never suggested we should go to sleep."

"When we were teenagers, did you ever imagine our lives together like this?" Dave asked, sliding off the counter and pulling Sebastian in close. "Because I'm pretty sure teenaged me could never have imagined you'd still be this hot."

"Or this horny?"

"No," Dave laughed. "_That_ I could imagine."

* * *

The next day went by faster than Dave had expected in a blur of meetings, phone calls and paperwork. Maybe he'd been mentally prepared for the worst because he knew what day it was, but it all felt so normal, so easy. It never quite slipped his mind, of course, but it also didn't feel like a fresh wound the way it had for a few minutes the night before.

It probably helped, too, that he'd already planned on only working a half day. For a few months Selena had been attending what Sebastian liked to call Baby Ballet, but was actually more of a pre-dance class for toddlers and their older dance partner; in other words, a parent or sibling. Sebastian was the only father in the class but was, as he put it, also the only older partner with rhythm. Of course, he also claimed that Selena had ten times the grace of any of her classmates – although he'd sworn never to say such a thing in front of the other children. Dave didn't think that _any_ toddler had grace, not even their little girl, but he wasn't going to tell Sebastian that.

But graceful or not, the class, which was actually a _pre _Baby Ballet class for kids that were still too young, was going to be having a mini recital. It was really just a chance for the kids to show off to music in front of their parents and any other family or friends who wanted to come along and watch them.

Dave had organized to have the afternoon off about three minutes after Sebastian told him that it was happening.

After the recital they had the rest of the afternoon unplanned, but if Dave knew Selena at all, she'd beg Dave to "sneak" them in to see the team's warm up training drills.

Selena _loved_ the Mets. She was too little to really understand baseball, but she knew that her Papa worked with the team and that made them, and baseball, her favorite. She'd decided emphatically that she was going to be a ballerina baseball star that played for the Mets and danced during half time. He wasn't going to be the one to tell her she couldn't, and his coworkers thought it was the sweetest thing any of them had ever heard.

In fact, the Mets' first spring training game was next week and at home, so Dave had already planned on bringing Selena along to watch live and his boss had promised to get one or two of the players out to meet her. She would probably deafen Dave with her excited squealing and he was definitely looking forward to it.

He had just finished up replying to his last email and was looking for some places where they might want to have Selena's third birthday party when there was a light knock on the door. It opened almost immediately after and Sebastian poked his head in with a grin.

"Hey Growly, don't tell me you're still working, because _someone_ hasn't stopped chattering about seeing Papa's office all morning."

Dave stood and made his way around his desk just in time to catch Selena as she escaped Sebastian's grip on her tiny hand and ran into the room excitedly.

"Papa, Papa! Look! _Look!_" she screeched, wiggling in the air where he held her as steady as he could. He'd managed to grab and lift her just seconds before she barreled right into his shins. "Look what Daddy maded me!"

She pulled at the netting on her tutu, completely unconcerned about how high Dave was holding her because she always trusted her Papa completely and was somehow convinced he was the strongest man in the world. Dave grinned at her and the excitement on her face, laughing at Sebastian's look of long suffering behind her. He'd probably been hearing this all morning, but it was his own fault, judging by what Selena was wearing. The tutu, which had once been plain white, was sparkling with orange and blue glitter.

"See? _See?!_ He maded my Mets bal'rina dress a'coz orange an' blue is _way_ gooder but Ms. Lizzie said silver," she took a deep breath as he pulled her in, settling her onto his hip. Her words were rushed and running together, but Dave had Selena-translation down to a science, "but Daddy says it's okay and Ms. Lizzie can just go–" Sebastian clasped a gentle hand over her mouth and smiled innocently.

"Ms. Lizzie can just enjoy our creativity," he said. Dave didn't buy that for a minute. He was going to have to remind Sebastian later about little ears and worse, little mouths that repeated everything they heard.

"You look perfect, Munchkin. You are going to be the prettiest baseball ballerina ever," he said, trying not to think too much about how he'd get the glitter off his suit later.

"Love you, Papa," she said, pressing a sloppy kiss to his cheek. His heart melted and he beamed at her.

"I love you too."

"Doesn't anybody love Daddy?" Sebastian joked.

Dave gave Selena another squeeze then leaned over and kissed Sebastian. "You know we do."

Selena nodded eagerly and Sebastian smiled at them both.

"I've just gotta grab my briefcase and my laptop, then we can head out," Dave said. He almost couldn't believe that this was his life, but at the same time he had the weirdest feeling of déjà vu.

"What's on your mind, Growly?" Sebastian asked when Dave didn't move for a few moments. He wasn't really sure he had all the words to explain how incredibly, _perfectly_, overwhelmed he was; how right it felt to be right there in that instant with his family.

Dave leaned over again, pulling Sebastian into another, longer kiss before he answered.

"_I'm so happy right now._"

* * *

"_You lean over to your partner, and you say…"  
_"_...I'm so happy right now."_

_(Glee Season 3, Episode 14, "On My Way")_

* * *

**Notes: ** Fuck, I can't believe this is over. It meant a lot to me to finish it here, on a scene so reminiscent of the one that turned my one-shot into a nineteen installment series. Ever since I decided to add more to No Strings and realized just how much Dave's partner looked like an older Sebastian, this has been my end game.

I wanted to post this – a story about the ten year anniversary of On My Way – on the two year anniversary of when I posted the first story in this series. I'm both relieved and sad to have finished this, but I'm also proud to say that all of the events of this series work around existing Glee canon, so unless they fuck my shit up in Season 6, which is highly unlikely, I will always consider this my canon for where Dave and Seb went after they each disappeared from the show.

It was so important to me to give Dave a life after what happened to him. The Glee writers may think they rounded out his storyline but to me it always felt like a big fuck you to him, and to anyone watching who was stuck in his position, who might have been scared that they didn't have a future or couldn't see past the hell they felt trapped in. In makes me sick inside when I think that the writers felt that a three minute conversation with Kurt was enough to put the broken pieces of Dave's life back together. So although I'm not really qualified to do him justice I hope I did well enough to make things a little bit better than Glee left them, at least. If nothing else, I think I care more than they did – enough to _try_.

Fun fact: I was tempted to make the summary for this something true, yet incredibly misleading. _"Dave wakes up from a very realistic dream and realizes how many opportunities his suicide attempt could have taken from him."_

And to end on a slightly less pained note, if anyone is wondering what Sebastian told Selena that had him covering her mouth before she could repeat it, it went something like this:

"_Is Ms. Lizzie gonna be mad? A'coz she said silver, but I wanna be a Mets bal'rina, Daddy!"_

"_It's okay, baby, Ms. Lizzie can go shove her silver. You'll be a Mets Baseball Ballerina if you want to. She's just cranky because she'd look awful in orange and blue."_

And then he spent the next few minutes muttering under his breath about teachers in creative fields stifling a child's flair so young.

Lastly, thank you so much to everyone who touched this in any way. To Danielle for being my original sounding board and beta, to Gabe for betaing for me over the last several months, to Mathilde, Lee, Adri, Megan, and everyone else who encouraged me and cheered me on, and to everyone who liked, kudos'd, reviewed, commented, bookmarked, favorited, reblogged, followed, or even just kept reading. Thank you for making it this far with me.


End file.
